The Major Taylor Project is dedicated to creating a multicultural community where teenagers have equal opportunity to spend time outdoors and on a bicycle.

The teenagers selected for the program will form a racing squad and ride Redline Bicycles. We’ll feature the MTP with a podcast and more of the back story next month.

Marshall Walter (Major) Taylor, the 1899 world cycling champion, was known as “the Worcester Whirlwind.” He broke through the color line half a century before baseball player Jackie Robinson. An international phenoeman, Major promoted the value of “clean living.” Years ago during a trip to DC, I saw the Major Taylor display at the Smithsonian and was impressed to this day.

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The 25Seven blog goes on a magical odyssey of funk and frame materials, when a Seven got all burned up in a house fire. Too bad Fire Marshall Bill didn’t pop his head into the frame there, but here ya go bike geeks: more ammo for the ongoing best frame material evar debate.

Let’s just say for the sake of argument, that a bike catches on fire. Who’s bike would best survive the flames?

Quick Funk lesson: Before,”The Roof! The Roof! The Roof is on fire!” entered the public lexicon, it was a Rock Master Scott single. Sampled into eternity and in live performances, the chant was later further popularized by the Bloodhound Gang.

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As a former mallrat, I feel a little hypocritical when I criticize Minneapolis’ Mall of America. But it is so bizarre. I mean, there’s a freaking amusement park in the middle of it, and three enormous levels of stores around. Mainly I was there to eat, because I never eat sBarro’s or Panda Express except when I’m traveling. Call it comfort food for the mallrat in my heart.

Nostalgia aside, I saw this display at the Columbia Sportswear store. It’s Bernard Eisel’s Team Columbia Giant from the 2008 TdF. What I thought was cool and authentic were the wires at the bottom bracket for an SRM crank that had been removed. Why would the team mechanic leave the pricey SRM Dura Ace crank on the bike if it was just going to sit in a mall in the middle of America?

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While visiting Hed Cycling’s headquarters in MN, I glimpsed what I thought might be a prototype for a new time trial base bar, based on their Black Dog Flat Bar. Not exactly. Turns out that they were slapping sections of carbon skin from the Jet series aero wheels to the base bar to make it conform to the 3:1 aspect ratio rule in case the UCI technical committee decided to move up the date of enforcement.

On the eve of the Tour of California, team mechanics and riders nearly had a heart attack when rumors spread that the UCI would enforce a rule that requires that the sections of bicycle components not exceed 3:1 for depth to length. A simplified version of this rule has been applied to bicycle frames and forks for years, but the UCI now intends to apply a more stringent definition that would effectively ban many existing time trial handlebars and even frames. Riders and teams spend a lot of time and money choosing the best equipment and dialing in the riders position; the new rule could have negated all of that work. Riders were afraid that they could roll up to the start of the time trial only to be told that they couldn’t ride the very same bike they used the previous time trial last year.